Berwick drug tale indicates stresses all competitors face
It was one of those teleprinter moments, so cherished by former watchers of BBC's Grandstand programme in Britain.
Between 4.40pm and 4.45pm every Saturday afternoon during the football season the results would be tapped out staccato-like on the teleprinter.
The camera would focus on the paper as the scores appeared like magic - oh the suspense of it all as you waited for the name of your favourite team to appear.
One winter's day in 1967 the printer burst into action with this unbelievable result: 4.41pm . . . Scottish FA Cup . . . Berwick Rangers 1 Rangers 0. To this day, it ranks as one of the biggest upsets in the history of the Scottish Cup. The mighty Rangers, with Celtic part of the dominant Old Firm of Scottish football, had lost to lowly Berwick Rangers.
Thirty two years have elapsed since then and little has been heard of Berwick Rangers except in sports quizzes: Which is the only English team to play in the Scottish league? But last week Berwick Rangers, based in the sleepy Borders town of Berwick On Tweed, were at the centre of a drug scandal that prompted newspaper headlines worldwide.
Martin Neil, their longest serving player, admitted in an interview that he had been taking cocaine, LSD and ecstasy for 12 years.
Remarkably, he has lived to tell all. His sorry tale includes popping speed in the dressing room before a game, ending up in hospital after playing a match drugged to the eyeballs and snorting cocaine following training. The 29-year-old Neil uttered his cry for help after being warned that he was heading for an early grave.
'I have been told that if I play football again under the influence of drugs then I could die on the pitch of a heart attack,' he said.
Scary stuff, indeed.
Neil has been given the full backing of his club but this will probably translate into a testimonial and free transfer at the end of the season. No team wants a player dying on them.
Just how many other Martin Neil's are out there is anybody's guess. If a player from a Third Division Scottish club, whose supporters are still dining out on stories about a famous win in the 1960s, cannot handle the pressure without the aid of mind-altering substances what's happening in the upper echelons of sport? Taking last week's stories as a yardstick, the twilight zone is full of sportsmen with split personalities.
Aston Villa star Paul Merson - an alcoholic - is back on the booze, Australian rugby league hooker Craig Gower was dropped from the side after exposing himself to a female tourist, basketball star Scottie Pippen was charged with drunken driving and South African cricketer Makhaya Ntini has been axed from the World Cup squad after being found guilty of rape.
It all adds up to one crazy, mixed up bunch of world sportsmen. And these are the guys who are meant to be role models for the young generation. Pity help them.
